Official 'Kitty' class boards thread

'Kitty' reffers to a new class of boards. The other boards I've made were made to be as usable in as many places as possible; Cthulhus, Imps, and FGW LED Controllers have been installed in all sorts of different sticks with great results. The Kitty boards represent a very different viewpoint. Instead of trying to make a single board that can be used in a wide variety of situations, these will be made to be installed in very specific sticks.

Goals:
1. Make installation as easy as possible in the specific Xbox360 arcade stick.
2. Make use of all of the features available in the stick as if the Kitty was part of the original design.
3. Add as much awesome as is physically possible.

As of this writing, boards and kits are ready to go for the first two products in the Kitty line: 'TE Kitty' and 'VLX Kitty'. These are made specifically for the MadCatz Tournament Edition FightSticks, and Hori VLX stick. I'm still in the middle of writing the normal documentation, but I welcome early adopters. Feel free to send a PM if you're willing to get your hands dirty with a new toy.

Comments

TE Kitty:
The TE Kitty is made for installation in Xbox360 versions of the MadCatz FightStick. Works with Rnd1 and Rnd2 stick. Installation into TE-S based sticks requires an additional cable kit that must be purchases in addition to the TE Kitty board.

Q: I'm confused about the TE-S harness thing.
A: It works like this. The TE Kitty kit, has the large important circuit board, and the ribbon cables to hook it up to original TE based sticks; Rnd1, Rnd2, MvC2, tons of others. If you have a TE-S based stick, you need to purchase the TE-S Kitty harness IN ADDITION to the TE Kitty kit. The TE-S Kitty harness has the ribbon cables needed to connect a TE Kitty board to the original 360 TE-S board.

Q: How do I know if my particular TE will work.
A: List subject to change at any time, but MUST be a 360 model.
Those with work with the TE Kitty, no additional harness required-
-Round 1 'Street Fighter 4' TE
-Round 2 'Street Fighter 4' TE (* see note)
-Comic-con (White with orange stripe) TE
-Femme Fatale TE
-Asian (All white) TE
-MvC2 TE
-MvC3 TE

* Round 2 TE's are currently coming out with TE-S based boards, when they originally used TE based boards. Please use the lock switch test mentioned above to see whether you need the TE-S harness.

Q: So how do I know if I need to get the TE-S Kitty harness without opening it up?
A: The easiest thing to do is plug the stick into a 360 and start up a game. Slide your switch to the 'Locked' setting. If your Start and Back buttons still work, then you do NOT need to get the TE-S Kitty harness, the TE Kitty kit will be all you need. If the 'Locked' setting disables the Start and Back buttons, then you DO need to get the TE-S Kitty harness IN ADDITION to the TE Kitty kit.

Q: How do I get it to work properly with SF4 AE for PC?
A: Move slide switch to 'LS'.

Q: Can I use a TE Kitty without having the Guide/Turbo/LED board? I want to remove that from my stick, or use a TE pcb+Kitty in my custom case.
A: You wouldn't be able to force Xbox360 mode, you would be perma stuck in DP mode (no MvC2 for you), you would 100% have to drill a hole for a Guide button, prolly bunches of others I cant think of at the moment. Can it work? Mostly. Will it work right? Meh. You'll lose some functionality without it, and I wont be doing any tweaks to the code to get around them. You will have all functionality if you can install a Guide button and a LS/DP/RS slider, but in short, it's not recommended nor supported.

Q: Can I put it into a SE stick? What about a BrawlStick? Aren't those the same guts as a TE?
A: Installation into SE's is not supported. The electronics are the same as a TE, so the installation is pretty smooth, but there's no easy way to mount the board itself so it doesn't rattle around. There are numerous pictures in this thread of it being done, but it involves a massive amount of Dremelling plastic out of the case, and I want nothing to do with that if I can help it; there are no instructions on how to do it, and if it doesn't work or you mess up, too bad, I wont care. The Brawlstick is much the same way, except the electronics are different as well. There's aren't even pictures of this happening because the Brawlstick electronics are funky. Just don't do it. If you have to ask, you can't do it, and I will not be helping at all.

Q: What about SFxT Pro sticks?
A: It's been done before, absolutely does require a TE-S harness, but it currently unsupported. I haven't found a way that's clean enough to my liking. So, it's been done, but I wont be able to help you.

Q: What about the SFxT V.S. sticks?
A: V.S. sticks will require a new harness. This has been order and will be listed for sale along with the installation instructions as soon as these harnesses arrive, around early April most likely.

VLX Kitty:
The VLX Kitty is made specifically for installation in the Xbox360 versions of the Hori VLX stick. Works with all known models, is a fully reversable/removable mod if needed and doesn't even break the warranty sticker.

Q: How do I get it to work properly with SF4 AE on PC?
A: Update to the latest firmware. Exit out of the SF4 program. Plug in the stick with the Start button held down. Start up AE and go into the controller setup, and set all of your buttons and directions. Save, and that's it. Once the directions and buttons have been saved, you will be able to just plug and play from then on out.

Oh man, so would kitty be comparable to something like a Teasy style mod except none of the mess of aligning pins?

Well, the TE Kitty and the TEasy/TEasy Strike are both made specifically for easy installation in 360 TE sticks, and both add PS3/PC/Xbox1 support. The similarities pretty much end there.

-The installation methods are different; TEasy uses pogo pins to make contact with the original board while the Kitty uses the same type of ribbon connectors; all of the cables that plugged into the original board now plug into the Kitty, and ribbon cables included with the Kitty connect the Kitty to the original TE pcb.
-TEasy/TEasy strike has that expansion connector for connecting a Sparky to it, Kitty doesn't have that.
-Kitty includes all of the MC Cthulhu supported consoles, using an RJ-45 jack right on the board. So install an RJ-45 jack into the case, plug a short ethernet cable into the jack on the case and the jack on the Kitty and you're done.
-Kitty attempts to add as much awesome as possible that were just easy low hanging fruit; the turbo LEDs are wired for light on press, the Guide LEDs show the direction the stick is in, the consoles that support it properly use the LS/DP/RS switch. To the best of my knowledge, the Strike devices dont do that. It's silly, I'll be the first to admit, but the free addition of making the existing LEDs light up is just cool in my book.

The TEasy and TEasy Strike are great products, and I hope this ends up being a worthy competitor to it. Plus, I'm also aiming for other sticks like the VLX.

I remember there was always a bit of trouble when it comes to aligning the pogo pins where kitty uses the existing wire harnesses.

Truth be told, I'd expect the TEasy installation to be a bit less hairy than the Kitty installation; you don't have to worry about the alignment, but you do have to unplug the ribbon cables from the original board, which is kind of a bitch thanks to that annoying yellow glue they use. There won't be any need for readjustment if it gets banged around though. So don't know if there is a clear winner between the two installation processes.

the turbo leds and guide leds sound awesome. safe to say lizardlick will be carrying them?

I'll be sending a bunch to Chad as soon as I feel the documentation is ready for release. Other distributors are welcome to carry them as well, they'd just need to get a hold of me. I think Chad is past caring after all this time and just buys whatever I send him, sight unseen.

this sounds awesome..i got two TEs waiting for them. what would the price point be?

Per piece looks to be $49.95 each for the VLX and TE versions. That may go down in the future if they're popular enough since I'm buying everything in pretty small quantities right now. Custom wire harnesses aren't cheap. There will be an additional wire harness needed if the TE Kitty is going into a TE-S. I hope to get that additional piece around $5 but I don't have an exact number yet.

Holy crap. Multiconsoling a TE just got insanely easy. Need to read in depth and see how button LEDs using KNserts or arc eyes would be affected by the new board, but this is extremely awesome news. Almost makes me want a 360 TE to try this

How many variants of the Kitty are you planning? Any chance of one for the VX HRAPs?

I would definitely make one for the new VX HRAPs, and even though it may sound silly, the Fighting Stick VX. Love that little beast. No ETA on these though; I have no idea how long, if ever, until they would be available.

I play PS3 exclusively but I want one just for the turbo LED button press thingy. Pretty shallow but that's cool for me. Oh and the on-the-fly button remapping.

Any chnace these can be made to be installed on PS3 versions? Not sure of this since it wasn't mentioned.

Not by itself. You'd have to get the LED panel from a 360 stick and the three ribbon cables that go to it. If you got ahold of that, maybe from someone putting a full plexi top into theirs, then you could do it.

Not by itself. You'd have to get the LED panel from a 360 stick and the three ribbon cables that go to it. If you got ahold of that, maybe from someone putting a full plexi top into theirs, then you could do it.

For some reason my buttons and joystick do not work when hooked up. When holding down the guide button during plug-in I am getting the boot-loader message. (Top left, bottom right LED's)

Well its good you're getting the lights for bootloader, that means your 7 pin ribbons are all connected properly. Next step would be to verify the bootloader works on the PC which would test the outgoing USB cable connection.
I've just put up the VLX Kitty firmware and flashing program, linked in the first post. Plug it in with Guide held down for bootloader mode and run the .bat file included. Let me know how it goes and we'll go from there.

You may want to grab the VLX firmware as well; IIRC, yours doesn't have the Guide LED fun, turbo, or button remapping.
(metal note: add info on remapping to first post)

Well its good you're getting the lights for bootloader, that means your 7 pin ribbons are all connected properly. Next step would be to verify the bootloader works on the PC which would test the outgoing USB cable connection.
I've just put up the VLX Kitty firmware and flashing program, linked in the first post. Plug it in with Guide held down for bootloader mode and run the .bat file included. Let me know how it goes and we'll go from there.

If you would like a native bootloader program for whatever system you have, you can compile your own by grabbing the diolan tarball, and extracting the zip to overwrite the two files in the fw_update directory. Make, run the executable with the command line switches you see in the batch file. If you do do all of this, I'd be happy to include it in the future releases for everyone.